TODAY   |  November 18, 2012

Obama: ‘We are fully supportive of Israel's right to defend itself’

President Barack Obama spoke on the unrest in the Middle East while on a trip to Asia. The president’s trip is meant to put a focus on foreign policy, with the president making a tour of the region, including Myanmar and Cambodia. NBC’s Chuck Todd reports from Bangkok.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>> as the violence rages in the middle east , president obama is overseas himself on a historic three-day tour of southeast asia . chief white house correspondent chuck todd is traveling with the president. he's in bangkok, thailand, this morning. chuck, what's happening there?

>> reporter: well, lester, while the president is at a joint press conference with the prime minister here in thailand, and among the questions that the president got was about the violence in gaza. and as you will hear in this answer to one of the questions he fully defended israel 's right to defend themselves. take a listen.

>> there's no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders. so we are fully supportive of israel 's right to defend it self from missiles landing on people's homes.

>> reporter: the president went on to say he's been in talks consta constantly with prime minister netanyahu, president morrissey of egypt is also the prime minister of turkey . he said the goal is nothing can be done until the missiles stop coming onto israel 's soil. once that stops, then a de-escalation of this violence, he hopes, can happen. by the way, as you pointed out, lester, this is a his ttorical nature to the president's trip here. the first american president to visit myanmar, formerly known as burma.